Sunshine and Stormclouds
by Elelith
Summary: Approved one-shots based on Silver Queen's Dreaming of Sunshine fic. Composed of different POVs and snapshots of Nara Shikako's life. Synopsis: Life as a ninja. It starts with confusion and terror and doesn't get any better from there. OC Self-insert.
1. Chapter 1 A Father's Fear

This is my approved way of being patient and not annoying Silver Queen to death with endless pleas for a new chapter. If you haven't read Dreaming of Sunshine, go read it now. These are short one-shots based on the the universe she created. If you still want to read this for some reason and you haven't read DOS, this is what you have to know:

Summary: Life as a ninja. It starts with confusion and terror and doesn't get any better from there. OC Self-insert

In other words, Nara Shikako is an OC self-insert who becomes Shikamaru's sister and has survived Naruto's lethal adventures until now.

This is Nara Shikaku's POV of his daughter after the Forest of Death, Chapter 26. I keep writing flashbacks within flashbacks so I hope it's understandable.

* * *

**Chapter 1: A Father's Fear**

Nara Shikaku is not a man prone to nostalgia. But as he looks at his daughter's impossibly fragile body engulfed by the white of the medical bed he can't help but remember the time he could still ensure the safety of his blood.

He remembers the birthing room, the screaming and blood. He is not a squeamish man; he can't be with all that he has survived. But it is different when it is your wife and the unknown complication are twins. Children born in ninja clans develop chakra pathways earlier in the womb. In the case of twins, the mother's chakra is unequally distributed and one is often stillborn, starved of chakra energy. His constant hidden worry for his children began before they had even birthed and the complicated pregnancy had had him subconsciously devise plans to bring Tsunade in during the birth.

Shikamaru he had no qualms about. The boy is eerily similar to him at that age and guiding him necessitates only the advice Shikaku's own father gave him. His daughter though, is a strange constellation of her parents and something decidedly unique. She constantly worries his wife with what would be erratic behaviour for anyone but a Nara.

And how fast they grow.

One minute Shikako is mimicking his every footstep, dragging books twice her size and the next it's Yoshino nagging him to go pick them up from their first day of school. He was waiting in the shade of the tree, more occupied with the latest puzzle the Hokage had set him in trying to control diplomatic relations with Suna when he saw them come out.

There was Shikamaru, ambling towards him and for once dragging his sister forward as she waved goodbye to a small blond mass – root of all ANBU headaches and captor of the only enemy his constantly churning brain had frozen in panic for. The first impulse to Shunshin forward and rescue his children is barely a twitch and he smoothes his features as logic returns.

He may trust the Hokage and intellectually pity the heavy burden on the Yondaime's son but he can still smell the blood spilt and the rot of the dead he helped bury that day. He had then returned home only to find Shikako deathly silent in her cot, curled around a squalling Shikamaru and had feared the worse. Shikaku had spent all night rocking her in his arms, sending soothing chakra to replace the corruptive one that must have silenced her and hoping against the possible death.

Shikamaru had been easy to hold and marvel at as love insidiously creeped up on him. Shikako had spent more time in the nurses arms as they tiredly tried to figure out her constant crying and he had loved his daughter in an abstract paternal manner. But by the time Yoshino found him still singing the old deer lullaby with a cracked voice, Shikako with her large dark eyes and tiny limbs had carved her own way irrevocably into his heart.

He blinks back to the academy playground, scooping up the small heated bodies as he set off a brisk pace, vaguely asking about school, his mind still on that night.

" ... met some new people."

Not one to ignore such an opening he carefully asked about the Uzumaki-boy, instinct waring with logic and for once not quite sure what to say.

"His name is Naruto. He's okay. Do you know… people treat him weird," her high lilting voice shaped in an unasked question.

Shikaku is too good to slip again but he mentally reassesses his daughter's perceptiveness. In a morning she had figured what took the Hokage 5 years to realise when the Jinchuuriki was still at the orphanage. He can feel Shikamaru twisting curiously at his long pause and he mentally curses the intelligence the Nara are known for. Now both his children are inquisitive about an S rank secret.

It's only their first day of school.

Kami-sama help him when they graduate.

He belatedly remembers to give a non-answer: "You should do what you think is right."

"What does daddy think is the right thing?" Shikako repartees, that childish voice asking him questions he's avoided thinking about for a long time.

"Why do you ask?"

"Because Daddy knows things I don't," The fact that she is verbally challenging him after recognizing the fact that he hasn't answered her would have sent infiltrating-enemy-ninja warnings if she was anyone other than a Nara. It still is frightening how fast she reads the situation. He already knows Shikamaru is superior to her in analytical intelligence but Shikako has a drive obviously not inherited from him allowing her to pick things up much faster than her twin and her ability to interpret social nuances between people is prodigious. All the while realising he still needs to answer her, he replies:

"Daddy knows many things you don't. What do you think of him?"

He has seen too many dogmatic youths blindly following orders and does not want his children to grow up so. Only the youth can highlight the ignorance of the previous generations and he is starting to think the Jinchuurikii secret will be proof of that.

"He's annoying, but so is Kiba and no one tells us to stay away from him."

Shikaku can't help but chuckle at the rightness of her statement, no doubt that is Inuzuka Tsume's son. And if he's anything like his mother then he could understand his daughter's annoyance.

"Do you know who Naruto's parents are?" Shikako piped up while still playing with his hair – children were death to any manly dignity- and ramping up his awareness of how delicate of a subject his precocious daughter was rampaging through.

"Why do you ask?"

"Because you're old" She stated with a child's infinite tact and wisdom, "and because everyone says to Shikamaru, 'You're just like your father,' then they leave him alone, because they know you're awesome. So did Naruto's parents do something bad?"

His infinitely calculating brain that is often required to think 10 steps ahead of the enemy is brought to a halt as he tries to halt his daughter's leaps of deductions. Next thing he knows she'll ask why he's a carbon image of the Yondaime. And beyond all these thoughts is a deep sadness he cannot quell. He knew Minato more than his wife, late meetings sequestered in the Hokage's tower with the Sandaime attending as they employed his strategies in the war against Iwa. For Namikaze Minato and Uzumaki Kushina to be reduced to conjectured criminals could only be a sign of something deeply flawed in Konoha.

"No one knows who his parents are," He manages another lie as his traitorous brain vanishes into the horizons.

"But he has a last name," She replies under Shikamaru's very interested stare. He's actually opened his eyes to watch the inexistent reaction of his face.

"It could be an honorary name, after someone who died the day he was born." Shikaku tries to plant the idea carefully, mentally tensing for the next leap of logic. But Shikako only hmmed and let the matter drop. He knew it wasn't the end of it. She had not inherited the famed Nara laziness and she doggedly followed up on things that interested her. He still remembers the intensity she put in learning how to read. Hours upon hours, sitting much stiller than any child her age, even a Nara, ought to.

It is that same intensity that tempts him to ask for a change of team mates when his children are 12. Again, Shikamaru offers him no worries, Yamanaka-Nara-Akimichi teams have never had any problems but both the Uchiha boy and the Jinchuuriki each come fraught with complications and as he watches his constant source of worry shyly smile at them he needs to curb the same impulse he had on the first day of school. Ninja are not meant to be coddled and he can only fight back his impulses and let them grow up on their own two feet.

Which leads him back to this bed. He hasn't had a moment free since this blasted Chuunin exam had started, between the suspected but unfindable mole and the hostile nations' representatives prowling through the street. He's also had this constant background of worry with both his children entering the exam. His fingers clench convulsively as he remembers receiving the intel about Orochimaru and which team had encountered him. Only years of experience and self-restraint had stopped him from tearing into the Forest of Death and assuring the safety of his only daughter.

"Been working overtime?"

He jerked as he noticed Shikako sitting up and he was hit with just how tired he must be.

"Sorry, pet. Didn't mean to wake you."

She saw his hands still clenched around the clip board and with her usual want to avoid tension she soothes "It's just a broken arm and fractured ribs,"

Her eyes are wide and dark in the moonlight. Half her face is bandaged and he wonders if all fathers feel such helpless anger at their children's wounds. He taps the side of her face "And this?"

"Just a scrape, the medics feel like they have to bandage _everything_. I won't even end up with cool scars like yours."

Remembering the pain and adrenaline in a flash he settles for: "You're far too young and pretty for that."

Tentatively she asks "Do you know what happened? In the Forest?"

He hums but gives her little detail, she's deep enough already.

Shikako then gives a clinical recounting of her adventures in the past few days. The cold and technical language help him keep his calm when all he wants to do is spend a few days in T&I with all her attackers. He even manages to add a wry: "I have Jounin that can't give reports that detailed."

When she asks about what her mother knows he internally winces. Yoshino had been wound tighter and tighter with every passing day of the exam and he had carefully not mentioned anything about Orochimaru, the dead ANBUs or the fiasco the entire Chunin exam was turning out to be.

"No, she doesn't," he says levelly. "We've been keeping his presence here quiet. It's the kind of thing that causes panic… or sets people out looking for revenge. The fewer people who know…" He doesn't say her mother would be the first one after Orochimaru's blood, and he's lost enough family to be wise about telling the truth to the wrong people.

"Team 10 and Team 8 know. We told them. I don't know who they've told."

Shikako hasn't learnt that lesson yet but he can only sigh. She's surpassed all his expectations and he wonders if she will broach what is really on her mind as he answers absently: "It can't be helped. But for now… try not to bring it up, alright?"

She nods and he can see her eyes narrow with mirth as she decides to leave him deal with Yoshino when she inevitably finds out the truth. He doubts any of his comrades have such a hard time with fatherhood. "Wicked imp," he mutters, as she widens her eyes, scrunches her nose and blinks innocently.

He snorts before he can help himself. But humour fades quickly as he considers how to address the elephant in the room. "How have you been holding up?"

As expected, she knows immediately what he's referring to and without looking at him she answers: "I don't know... everyone keeps _looking _at me…"

Shikaku still remembers his first kill. It had been a few years before the Second Great Shinobi World War and the simple caravan they were protecting from bandits was ambushed by ninja. Missing information, precious cargo, a lying customer – it had been a recipe for disaster and in the heat of the battle, when his limbs were moving as fast as his whirring brain his body's mechanical Taijutsu became a lethal weapon. He remembers how shocked he was when he saw the broken neck of the teenager lying in front of him. How being honed into a killing machine from childhood didn't prepare him for the results of said training. He had never forgotten his fist kill. He had been 14.

And now his daughter lay in the sterile hospital room, eyes not meeting his and he wonders if the endless cycle of death will ever be stopped. "You're probably the first of your friends to take this step. They don't understand yet and they're looking to you to see how you handle it."

He had been lucky, his comrades hadn't even noticed the dead body as they set off after the ninja bandits and the stolen caravan gold. But this is one more thing he cannot protect his daughter from. He only wishes it hadn't happened so young.

"I know. It's just..How am I supposed to feel about it? With everything else that happened… its such a small thing…"

Death becomes routine once you survive being a ninja long enough he muses. There is nothing worse then the first time you see the body of the life you've just snuffed out and do not feel anything. And yet, desensitisation is a must to remain sane. The end justifies the mean is a poor comfort when you try to wash of the blood of children. That had been his last mission before he went into the strategical division and started devising Konoha's protection from behind the scenes. There is nothing comforting he can tell his daughter and she needs the truth so he settles for: "You feel about it however you feel about it. No one can tell you that you're right or wrong to feel that way. But you can't change what happened either; its too late for that now."

"Was it the right choice?" The question is nearly whispered and he wonders if she means to say it aloud but he answers all the same: "I can't tell you that. The life of a ninja is a hard one, with hard decisions that have to be made. We might not always make the right choices, but we learn from them regardless. And sometimes, the choice we _must_ make isn't one we like, or sometimes none of the options are happy ones. Only you can tell if the decision you made was the right one."

She fidgets a little before finally lifting her eyes back to me, a glint of defiance in them. "I wish they hadn't attacked us. But… I don't feel guilty. I don't… _regret_ it."

He carefully keeps his tone calm as he comments: "It's something that every ninja has to face at one point or another,"

Her brow finally unwrinkles as she sighs: "You better go home or Mum will start to worry about you too."

He knows he cannot stay here all night if Yoshino is to remain ignorant so he quirks a smile and drops a light kiss on her forehead. "We can't be having that, sleep tight."

As he silently moves off he decides himself. His daughter had been forced to kill. His children need all the Nara techniques they could learn. He would be very busy come next week.


	2. Chapter 2 Toad Troubles

Whoa, thanks a lot to all my reviewers and the multitudes of faves. I wrote the last one-shot to work out my impatience for DOS chapters and was only going to write again later on but reviews have always spurred me into writing so this chapter is for you guys. I was worried before posting the first chapter- I wanted to do justice to Silver Queen's epic work. I've found publishing chapter two is even scarier as people who have read chapter one can't help but compare the two. Anyways, I'm planning to slowly work my way through different POVs, not all of them will be as successful as Shikaku's so bear with me. I might also write a few missing scenes I've imagined happening outside Shikako's view. Any prompts?

Also, I have no beta and this is still rough around the edges, I will come back to it and polish but I thought you would appreciate a quicker update...

Summary: Life as a ninja. It starts with confusion and terror and doesn't get any better from there. OC Self-insert

In other words, Nara Shikako is an OC self-insert who becomes Shikamaru's sister and has survived Naruto's lethal adventures until now.

This is Jiraiya's POV of Chapter 42 after Team 7 encounters Uchiha Itachi. Again, there are a lot of flashbacks. Feel free to point out mistakes, I'll try to fix them as soon as I can.

* * *

**Chapter 2: Toad Troubles**

The Toad Sage is halfway through the window before he takes in the scene before him and pauses. Minato's prodigy is half reclining against the bed, the bleak expression on his face quickly smoothing out as he quirks his head towards the window. His hand however doesn't stop absently stroking the dark hair of the small body curled up next to him.

Two more people hurt by his mismanagement of information, Jiraiya cannot help the bitter thought and compensates with an overlight tone as he greets them: "Hey, kiddo. And it looks like you've got a limpet with you."

Kakashi's hand does still this time as he quirks an eyebrow with a silent question. Jiraiya ignores him as he stares at the third occupant of the room. The Sannin has been put under the Uchiha eyes more than once during his tumultuous youth, more often than not because an irritated member of the now defunct clan did not get his sense of humour. They had been rather benign but he still remembers how often he had seeked a companion's touch after he had regained his senses. At a slightly morbid angle, the little Nara and the Hatake prodigy seeking each other's company was ideal for their recuperating mental health.

"Jiraiya. What brings you here?" Kakashi finally deigns to verbalise and Jiraiya feels another pang as he remembers the lengths Minato would go to in teasing his student into talking. He quickly forces the thoughts back. If he starts reminiscing he will never get anything done so he focuses on replying. He knows he is a great spymaster but information that comes late is useless and he hasn't managed to pin down Akatsuki's movements accurately yet, only through third-hand reports.

"Just checking up on you. I didn't expect them to be moving so fast. I would have warned you, if I knew."

His eyes flicker as he notices the slight movement of a hand sign by Kakashi and he tries to minimise his blunder. With an expert chuckle he adds: "It's a bit late for any sort of warning now,"

He hasn't known Nara Shikako as long or as well as Naruto but he should have understood enough about her character to know she wouldn't let this go. He gives a purely mental sigh as she reaches up and destabilises the chakra he had coated her voice box with.

In a grimace of pain she asks: "You're… talking about Akatsuki, aren't you?"

He would have winced at the ruined rasp of her voice if she wasn't spouting things she should not remember and had no other possible way of knowing without looking into S-class secrets. He gives a sharp glance at her Sensei- he thought Kakashi would have protected the knowledge better considering just how foolhardy his genin have proved to be but Kakashi's face shows true shock and responds with silent denial so he focuses back to the young girl as he leans back against the wall with forced calmness and with a carefully normal voice asks: "How do you know that name?"

"Itachi told me," She replies without flinching, her eyes impossibly dark. Then she frowns as she adds delicately: "Didn't Naruto tell you what he said?"

Jiraiya snorts before he can help himself. He loves Naruto as his godson, as the son of his student and now as his student but the boy would never make an Intelligence expert. Naruto had babbled ceaselessly about the fight but apart from vaguely mentioning Itachi was talking about a group of super strong ninja criminals that acted really cool if they weren't you know, criminals he had been of little help. "That brat… Wouldn't remember his own head if it wasn't so loud." He shook his head, half exasperation, half drama. "What else did the Uchiha say?"

He sees exactly when he loses her to memories as the shadows in her eyes turn opaque.

He turns his eyes away and wonders if he could have done anything different. He had known something was wrong as soon as he had seen the inviting prostitute's glazed eyes. On high alert, he had followed her, thinking she was bait to lead him into a trap and what better way to find his enemies than let himself be lead to them? He had realised his mistake as soon as he had felt the strong chakra flare by the Nara girl who had no business to be in this village. He'd never Shunshin'ed away so fast. It hasn't been difficult to locate the altercation when he heard the high pitched screaming and his eyes had widened.

It seemed Akatsuki had found his new student and he ran faster as images of the last war flashed under his eyes. He had been fighting with a platoon of Uchiha and one of them had the idea to use the Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu to kill two ambushing ninjas. Their death had not been quick and they had emitted the same pain-filled screams he was hearing now before he had thrown two kunais and ended their pain. There was a familiar cold fear at the fate of the young girl that had wormed a place in his heart with her cool logic and implacable determination.

The Sannin felt a fraction of relief as he arrived on scene to see the girl physically unharmed. It only took him a second to understand as Uchiha Itachi let go of her as if burned and she slumped to the floor, still screaming in desperate pain. Both her team mates were still, eyes wide with shock. He didn't wait for them to snap back and do something foolish as he let his anger show with heavy chakra and Killer Intent. Both boys flinched while Uchiha Itachi and Hoshigaki Kisame faced the new threat. These were two members of Akatsuki he had managed to find quite a bit of intel on. He had traced their journey since birth and knew he could best them in a fight. They seemed to realise it too as they shared a flicker of a glance and Shunshin'ed further away. The Toad Sage hadn't yet faced any Akastsuki members and he was tempted to give chase- they would be an information goldmine but he had three genin to think about and the Nara girl had not let out on her screaming so he made sure their chakra was running away at high speed before he gave his attention to the three twelve year olds.

He turned to see the two hot heads rushing towards their team mate. The screaming would not stop. Of course it wouldn't, the Uchiha's ultimate weapon lay in their eyes and their abilities were well honed in that respect. He swiftly reached the girl and targeting a pressure point, tried to knock her out more soundly. But the screaming continued. It was also attracting civilians as young girl screams were wont to do.

"Pervy sage, what's happening to her? Fix her!" Naruto shouted, eyes wide with fear.

It took him three long seconds to decide on a course of action and grabbing all three he wasted half of his huge chakra reserves to make it to Konoha in record time.

Shikako takes a deep breath as she blinks away the darkness and he finds himself back in the hospital room.

"That he belonged to an organisation called Akatsuki. That they were there after the Kyuubi and they're after the other Bijuu as well…" She faltered before musing: "There are more of them, not just him and Kisame… he called it a 'mission' like a proper…"

She doesn't need to finish her sentence. Jiraiya has seen many rogue ninjas band throughout the years but Akatsuki were on a whole other league. The Sannin had become the official spymaster for Konoha after Orochimaru had betrayed his village. It had been part penance, for he could never have imagined liking it and part desperation to find his former friend's trail. It was only though his dogged tracking of the Snake that he had stumbled upon the larger organisation. The confrontation with Uchiha and Hoshigaki had been the first time he had met any members face to face. The fact that the little Nara had found so much information in ten minutes would have been insulting if the result had been different.

Kakashi seemed to be thinking among the same lines as he shot him a glance and asked: "He specifically said they're after the Bijuu?"

At her nod, Jiraiya scratches his chin. "Hmm. Awful chatty of him. Still, that works in our favour."

But it did bring back all the doubts he had had about Uchiha Itachi. The whole Uchiha massacre had reeked of deception. The mechanics had not added up. He had been hot on Danzo's tail during that time. The bastard had been in regular contact with Orochimaru before his disappearance. But to his shock, the Sandaime had called him to his office for a formal meeting and ordered him off the Uchiha case and Danzo. In anger he had left the village but he could never keep grudges against him Mentor and the same year had started his spy network outside Konoha.

His musings are interrupted by her rasp: "You… know more about them, don't you?"

He sees the Kakashi-brat stiffen and he feels incredulous at what direction the little Nara is going into. Apparently Team 7 was absent when common sense was distributed.

"That's not something you want to get yourself messed up in, kid," Jiraiya warned. He had enough on his plate without worrying about 12 year olds jumping into danger again. He had regretted telling her from where he and Naruto would set off in the first place but she had saved Naruto from kidnapping. He knew once the Uchiha had Naruto in his grasp they would have been near impossible to track. "Don't worry about it, okay?"

"I already am," She retorts without a pause.

He sees she has already thought about this. He cannot afford to have this complication so he drops the remnants of his jovial mask as he hammers out:

"You've just had an abject lesson in how _out of your league_ you are. You should be jumping at the chance to get to safety."

She shrugs uncomfortably and offers another token of protest. "Naruto is my team mate. If they come after him again, I'm going to _be there_. It involves us."

He does not want to bring Minato's student into this but he needs this idea to be nipped at the bud. "Look at your sensei there. At your age, he was already a Jounin. And he went down just as fast as you did. There are very, very few people who can stand up against that level of enemy."

Kakashi's fists clench convulsively at the unwelcome reminder of his defeat and the subsequent harming of his students. But Jiraiya knows he understands the necessity of the reminder. He focuses back on the 45 kg of foolhardiness to see her eyes lost into the distance before she snaps them back to his face:

"You're going to take Naruto away."

He is the spymaster of Konoha and has lived through fifty summers of ninja warfare and deception but he cannot hide the blink of surprise. He might have expected this of Nara Shikaku but this little slip of a girl does not stop jumping deductive leaps and landing correctly. He understands a little better how she got so much information off the Uchiha.

He answers guardedly: "Yes... Not right now, but soon."

She ignores him as she steadily continues deducing: "You'll take him away, because you're the only one that can protect him. But you're also going to be teaching him how to fight back, aren't you? How to match up against opponents of that level. And eventually… you'll bring him back. So we'll learn too. We're his _team._"

Her words ring eerily in the silent hospital room, lending them weight. For a moment he wonders how far those dark fathomless eyes can see.

He has wondered at the deep friendship between them when he had first met her with his godson. He now understands it must be their bull headed stubbornness that had united them. But Uzumaki Naruto used bluster and sheer will power to convince and hold steady. Nara Shikako politely listened to all objections and then through impossible leaps of logic confounded everyone into agreeing.

Yet, he cannot help but try to halt the flow of determination: "He also has advantages you don't. Look. It's great that you want to help your team mate. It really is. I bet your sensei is proud of you. But it doesn't change the fact that there's nothing you can do."

She bites her lips subconsciously, as if she has a few choice curses but her intellect stops her knowing it won't help. "I know, _I know. _I know we're too young, too weak. I know we have to rely on you to- I _know._ But we can learn, can get stronger, can… At least we'd know when to run."

Jiraiya knows she is reaching the end of her argument as she cuts herself off twice. She does not even realise her limbs are shaking with exhaustion, her body unused to movement after so much inaction. But it is the look in her eyes, the frustrationangervulnerability with the sheen of tears she refuses to let fall that finally make him sigh in defeat.

It had been the same look that had made him relent when he had first met her.

He had started training Minato's legacy, slowly seeing Naruto in his own right after having abandoned him for so long. It had been easier to makes excuses when he was a newborn with little personality – when Jiraiya could only see more loss whenever he laid his eyes upon him. But time had dulled the pain and seeing Naruto grow to look more like his father every day; to laugh out Kushina's favourite phrases and mimic gestures he had never seen had brought their own form of healing. The kid was just as ambitious as his parents and Jiraiya had let him sign a contract with the toads immediately. Kushina's huge chakra reserves and Minato's skill combined in one bundle of eye-soring orange was a sight to see.

Having set his young student a task that would hopefully occupy him for a good while, he had gone onto the more pleasurable occupation of reinforcing his reputation in Konoha. Peeping in the women's bathhouse while giggling and scribbling in a notebook was a classic. Jiraiya's reputation was one part accidental and three parts intentional. It had been Minato that had inadvertently given him the idea once while they had been hiding deep in Iwa territory. Jiraiya had been complaining about the number of ninjas approaching him for teaching and clans trying to entrap him into marriage so that he would pass his skills and heritage in their bloodline. Ever since Hanzo had dubbed his team the three legendary Sannins and as their fame grew with the Second Great Shinobi World War he was never left alone.

Minato had been utterly useless as he tried to muffle his laughter in the tree they had been hiding in but he finally pointed out Jiraiya needed to acquire a few bad habits to keep all the scary females away. He cannot help a smile at the memory. That was how he had started the Icha Icha series. It had only been after he had left the village, furious with the Sandaime and had started establishing his spy network that he remembered Minato's words. Half his informants had been prostitutes at that time for what better way to tease out a man's secrets and learn about rumours?

He had carefully built up his reputation from there. It had allowed him easier movement between his spies and most clans stopped throwing their daughters at him once he started his lecherous routine. It also helped slightly erode his reputation of a skilled ninja in some villages and that underestimation had often been the last thing they had done. Overall, an enjoyable means to achieve multiple ends.

Sometimes Jiraiya impressed even himself.

His rambling thoughts were interrupted by his new student. He had felt the slight chakra presence approach but it wasn't until Naruto shouted that he paid attention to it.

"Shikako! Look! Look! I did it! I summoned a toad!"

He observed the slight twelve years old stare blankly at the small tadpole before her mouth curved into a smile and she said: "That's great, Naruto,"

Jiraiya had checked out all of Naruto's files when he had returned to Konoha. The fact that his godson was dead last had him rail at the Sandaime for a few minutes. He had known it would not be easy for the Yondaime's Legacy but the sheer neglect his file implied had sent a shard of anger and guilt ripping through him. When he had seen the team placements he had flicked through the first nondescript team mate to the name Uchiha Sasuke which resulted in a sharp eyed glance to his Sensei.

"Uchiha? You think that wise?" He had asked.

"The standard sorting was used."

Jiraiya had given a short bark of laughter, "Don't give me that. These two? With Minato's student as their Sensei? I hope you know what you're doing because you just doubled the risks for my already danger-prone Godson."

The Toad Sage had forgiven the Sandaime a long time ago for his mistakes and obfuscations but the rest of that conversation had not been pleasant.

This team mate he had overlooked rather quickly as he took a quick measure of her.

Her dark eyes and hair were not very telling and it was only the glance at her name in the file that made him recognise her as a Nara. He would not have guessed otherwise. There was a lack of a certain posture that masked her clan name. She stood in front of Naruto, sensible ninja attire in shades of green and grey and a smile at her team mate's accomplishment. He wonders why the Sandaime put her in this team. The old man always had a reason. He decides he needs to suss her out a bit more. He has twelve years to make up for in his Godson's life and team mates are a first priority.

He snorts and inserts himself into the conversation: "I wouldn't get so excited about it, kid. That's a pretty pathetic attempt!"

"Shut up! I'm trying, alright?" Naruto hollered back. Nothing could put that kid down. Jiraiya should know – he had tried damned hard the first few days.

The girl had not noticed him and she perks up to his voice, it seemed Naruto wasn't the only one with poor situational awareness.

"Is that…?" she asks.

"Yeah, that's the pervy sage. Are you _really _sure you wanna meet him?"

Jiraiya inwardly groans, apparently his tales of lewdness has not driven away all of them. He prepares his routine:

"What's this? Someone wants to meet with the great Jiraiya? Is it a pretty woman? Oh, brat, you make me so proud!"

"It's not like that, you - you pervert!" Naruto explodes, waving his hands about and shouting at the top of his lungs. "Why can't you be serious at all?"

"Well, you're _starting_ to get the right idea," Jiraiya claps Naruto on the back as he leers at the young girl. Intellectually, while she still had a prepubescent body he is enough of a connoisseur to know she will grow up to be rather beautiful. Not very curvaceous but she will have an understated kind of loveliness, elegant and slim. For now though, she is a young girl facing the kind of perverted old man they are warned about since infancy, whether civilian or ninja. That usually sends them running or punching- depending on the type of girl. He might even let her get a good hit, he feels rather generous. He adds: "This one is a little young for me though."

Naruto gasps in outrage but the Nara girl just tilts her head slightly to the side as she looks at him blankly, as if waiting for him to finish acting. Jiraiya is not often surprised but this kid has managed it without even opening her mouth. He nearly feels reluctantly impressed until she bows low and opens her mouth: "Jiraiya-sama, please-"

Damn, he thinks, not another one of those and goes for straight forward irritating: "Oh, no. Just because I got suckered in to teaching this brat doesn't mean I'm about to go around giving lessons to every kid he drags along. So you can just toddle off back home and do whatever it is young girls do." He adds a giggle for good measure.

"I-"

"Nope. Not a chance. Sorry." He waves half-heartedly over his shoulder and turns to go back to his previous spot, he's seen enough. The girl must be a calming presence between the boys and obviously has no issues with Naruto though he didn't expect any considering her father and clan. Sometimes he thinks the Nara are the only sane clan left in Konoha. She must be smart enough to recognise him by sight but doesn't seem to stand out –

He pauses as shadows hold him in place.

He is taken aback by her audacity.

"Jiraiya-sama, I've been studying seal work but there is only so far I can get studying books without someone to ask for clarification. Please, could you answer a few questions?" She says hurriedly as she drops the Shadow Possession.

She is smart enough to know it couldn't hold him at her skill level and it is obviously only to catch his attention but he turns anyways as he drops the levity he usually wears and scrutinises her. She recognises the weight of his gaze as she lifts her chin stubbornly, her face blank.

"A Nara, huh? Sorry, little girl, regardless of whatever clan tricks you've got up your sleeves, you just _don't impress me._" He lets out a bit of Chakra, not Killer Intent but it reinforces the fact that for all he looks harmless he has a body count higher than the number of days she's survived and she is defenceless against him. "I'm a busy man, I don't have time to hold your hand and teach you how to make your own explosive tags or whatever kids want to do with seals these days."

He rarely has to get this serious when he rejects ninjas desperate to be taught and he shifts around, having settled the matter. But he is learning the little Nara likes to be unpredictable and he barely hides his shock at the look in her eyes. Frustration, anger and iron cold determination that should not belong to a girl her age glares at him as she snaps out, no mention of sama's or respect:

"I already know how to make my own explosive tags," She pulls a notebook from her pouch, "What I want - what I _need_ - to know is how to create my own seals. And how to apply them with a touch for use in combat. _Nothing_ I have read even hints at it." She frowns as if the natural caginess of ninjas was specifically designed to annoy her.

Jiraiya flashes her a considering look and snatches the notebook from her hands, he is rarely surprised and that alone deserves a second look. He hmms impressed as he flicks through the pages, he can see the analytical side of the Nara clan at the clear comparison of different types of tags. Neat handwriting carefully highlights improvements to classical tags and combinations of different ones.

Still, she had some work to do, the notebook shows she is still copying and not creating.

"You'll never be able to seal like that using mass production seals like these. You have to _own_ your seals. Mind and soul. Look, the reason no one else can do the Fourth Hokage's Flying Thunder God Technique isn't do to any safety seals or secrecy seals, no matter what anyone else says. It's because he invented his own damn branch of sealing to make it work."

She blinks but her eyes are sharp and it has been a long time a student of his has given him undivided attention and he subconsciously switches into mentor mode.

"Look. Seals are all about influencing the world with your chakra. The ink, the symbols… its all trapping. Important, yeah, but …" he flicks his fingers back and forth.

"But… then why are there so many distinct branches of sealing?" She asks bewildered.

He cannot help laughing at the confused expression on her face, he's starting to realise she rarely wears it. "People only think in so many different ways, kid. You live long enough, you'll work _that_ one out."

"Oh." She blinks as she looks down at a second notebook. "So I guess this is useless then. I was comparing the twelve most used branches of sealing arts. Method, theory, range of uses, results, points of conflicts…" She trails off.

"Let's see it," Jiraiya curses himself for asking but he's more or less resigned to another pseudo-student. She hands him her notebook with no hesitation and he makes a note to tell her never to do that with ninjas she doesn't implicitly trust. But for now he contents himself to scan her calculations and conjectures, his mind whirring as he sees what she has already postulated and designed with the examples she had. It's rather impressive how far off the path she's gone and yet through sheer intelligence still managed to make accurate assumptions about sealing.

"Well, you completely missed the _point_," he says slowly, trying to gauge just how much potential she has. "But… do you mind if I read through this? A large part of being a seal master is working out what _other_ people have done. I'll correct any mistakes you've made."

"Yes, of course, Jiraiya-sama," she replies automatically and frowns slightly at the long measuring look he gives her. Jiraiya is astute at sizing up characters and he wonders how he wrote her off so quickly as average. Probably because the more flamboyant legacies of both her team mates eclipses her presence. He's wary now of overestimating her but he cannot help the spark of excitement as he continues flicking through her neat writing. She reminds him of Minato's determined competency, but somehow the comparison with his old student doesn't hurt as much.

He wonders if he should pay a visit to Nara Shikaku as he watches her analyse the failings in his godson's technique. Hmm, chakra sensitive too. He had wanted the brat to figure it out himself but he guesses Naruto would probably be there all night if he was left to his own devices.

"Okay. Let's try this. Build up your chakra." Naruto followed her instructions with no hesitation, closing his eyes to concentrate. "Now do the hand seals _but_ don't do the summoning yet. _Now_ move the chakra in your Hara down your arm."

His hapless students lost focus, "Huh?"

The Nara girl smiled patiently as she hovered her hand over his stomach, "This is where you're building your chakra, right? Now, you need to move it up your shoulder and down your arm... Now do the summoning bit,"

He watches absently as she helps Naruto summon a bigger toad, all the while explaining each step. The girl is obviously comfortable with Naruto's practical vs theory aptitude and their gestures speak of long familiarity. He wonders is she knows about the Kyuubi.

"...You lose a lot of chakra between moulding it and using it in the jutsu. So you need to focus on moving it where you want to go, right? That's probably what more chakra control will help you with the most."

"Right! I'm going to get this jutsu down. Believe it!" Naruto said firmly. "Here I come! _Summoning Jutsu!_"

"I'll leave you to it, then." She gives a crooked smile and walks off, a quiet shadow in the morning sun.

"How long have you known the little Nara Naruto?" Jiraiya asks idly. There's something niggling at the back of his head. It was her eyes. She was the same age as her Godson and her maturity could be explained somewhat with her clan and gender but her eyes, they had looked too old, too _knowing_.

"Eh? Shikako? What do you want with her pervy sage?"

Jiraiya sighs exasperated at his own mind for conjuring more puzzles. He puts the matter to the back of his mind as he concentrates on Minato's son and the headache the Chuunin exams are turning out to be.

Of course the second time he sees her it _must_ involve explosions and his blonde troublemaker.

He is just finishing his daily peeking and mentally preparing himself for Naruto's exuberant company. So when he sees the explosion coming from the last place he left his student with strict orders to train and not cause trouble he panics slightly and immediately Shunshin's to the clearing. He relaxes when he sees the situation.

"Oi, brat! Quit messing around with explosives! You scared all the ladies off," Jiraiya says mock aggrieved. "Oh, it's your _lady friend._ Come to see Jiraiya again, hehehe?" He knows it doesn't bother her but it is his moral obligation as a Godfather to embarrass Naruto and as predicted...

"Don't say it like that!" Naruto shouts.

"Jiraiya-sama. Sorry for disturbing you. I was just showing Naruto what I'd managed to do."

"And here I thought you said you already knew how to make explosive tags," Jiraiya says shrewdly. And from studying her notebooks he knows she is competent in the basics.

"Uh, yes, I do. I mean, that's why I started with them because I already know how…" She flushes at her own words.

"Do it again!" Naruto instructs with impeccable timing, shoving a rock into her hand. "Watch this, pervy sage, it's awesome!"

He suspects what she is going to do as she places her hand on the rock and he is proved right as she throws the rock into the air and it explodes. She gazes at him, eyes guarded, apparently ignorant of the enormity of the step she has achieved. Minato had managed it at a younger age but he had already been studying seals under him for a few months and a seal master is critical in the sealing field. He's studied her notebooks enough to know she should not have reached this stage anytime soon. It must have been a calculated leap of genius that had allowed her to link and understand what to do for paperless sealing. He comments in a measured voice: "Well, it's a good thing you showed up, anyway. How long have you been working on this?"

"Uh, since just after graduation." He really needs to work on his poker face because he cannot help the incredulous look he gives her. Three months? She manages to figure out an intrinsic part of sealing with no teacher to guide her in ninety days? He had known some to take years to understand the depth needed to do what she had just done.

"What? We had a mission to do as well,"

"That's not what I… oh, never mind. How many more of these notebooks do you have?" He asks, excitement bubbling. He hasn't seen anybody since the Yondaime understand sealing so instinctually.

"A few. I work on stuff other than sealing as well, you know. The rest are mostly encrypted though."

"I noticed that, why isn't this one?" It had been the first thing he had noticed, the strange symbols, unlike the standard Kanji alphabet ninjas used throughout the Land of Fire. He had first smiled at the proper paranoid care she seemed to be taking with her notes but then wished he had had a few more samples of coding and hours to figure it out. He had only had a glance but it seemed complex and she appeared to have invented a whole language for it. There was no way to doubt her parentage when she stared at him, eyes dissecting in a very familiar pattern. Only, Shikaku masked it with lazy half lidded eyes while his daughter made no such pretence.

"I …uh… didn't encrypt that book because it's an analysis. I wanted… I wanted to have it put in the clan library later."

She blushes and looks down at her own audacity but he has no doubt anything she writes will later on be treasured in the famed and secretive Nara libraries. "The rest are in code. And I don't really want to give you a chance to break it."

He can't fault her for that, and he wonders again at how he ignored her potential at first- for there is no doubt she holds just as much potential as either of her team mates. Give her a few years with a good teacher and she would soar- she had the Nara brains and an unexplainable drive for it.

"Fair enough, fair enough. Well, we might as well go over this now." He pauses and as expected, Naruto is staring at the sky, eyes glazed and mouth drooling. Jiraiya sighs, why couldn't the boy have inherited a bit more work ethic from his father?

"Brat! Get back to work!"

He flicks open the notebook to all his comments, cramped handwriting on yellow post-it-notes, and begins teaching seals.

He feels both rejuvenated and weary. Throughout his years, he has taught seven students. Six of them were now dead. He had sworn, while standing on Minato's grave that he would never take a student again. The Sandaime had tried to push some on him, had told him he was unreasonable and a new generation needed to be trained. But what was the use when the new generation died before the old?

Besides, Orochimaru had become a missing nin after being caught performing horrific experiments on children while Tsunade was all but by name a missing nin, racking up huge gambling debts and generally being a useless drunk. Out of the three of them, he found himself to be quite reasonable in only refusing new students.

The seventh, Naruto, he could not refuse- he had too much to atone for and Minato's son needs to know how to handle his Chakra and his Jinchuuriki. The sunny blonde boy had proved to be healing for his festering wounds.

Taking Nara Shikako as a sort of student was completely his own decision. There was no obligation, duty or lingering memories. Jiraiya just didn't want to see her potential wasted.

He did however, meander towards the Nara compound after finishing with his two students. As expected on his only few off hours during the Chuunin exams Shikaku was alone on his front porch, frowning at a shogi board.

He looked up at Jiraiya's approach and raised a single eyebrow, "How troublesome. How I fathered that girl I sometimes wonder."

"How did-" Jiraiya sighs, he should know better than question Shikaku by now.

"You wouldn't approach me about work during the few hours I have and Shikamaru knows better than make himself interesting to you. Besides, word is, you're teaching her teammate. It was rather inevitable..."

Jiraiya chuckles, "The legendary Nara laziness... Yet you find yourself in your current profession."

"Hopefully my son will be more skillful in avoiding responsibility. Shikako though has never understood the importance of laziness."

Jiraiya hmms before asking: "I assume you know about her potential in sealing then? Have you thought about getting her a specialised teacher?"

Shikaku just raises an eyebrow at him.

"I can only give her advice, you know what I must do once these cursed exams are over."

"Shikako has managed rather well until now. I'm more interested in why you're really here."

"One day, I will figure out how to get something past you."Jiraiya sighs and adds delicately: "Your daughter... Does she know about the Jinchuuriki?"

Shikaku gives him a penetrating look before nodding: "Yes, she guessed after their first mission outside Konoha. She has always loved the legends and myths of the hidden villages. Why?"

"She is... very mature for her age." He cannot seem to say more but the clan head seems to understand. Apparently he is not the only one who's noticed those too-old-eyes or adult behaviour. But there is no good explanation for it. He knows for certain she cannot be an imposter- she would not have gotten through Nara Shikaku. But it still worries him, children should not grow too old too fast- especially when their is no obvious reason for it. He sees the same worry reflected in the black eyes before him.

"She is a Nara. Sometimes that manifests in different ways."

Jiraiya snaps out of his memories and into the present. He hasn't doubted her nearly maternal attachment to Naruto but this latest episode proves the Uchiha brat is also under her fierce protection.

"Save me from Genin with no self preservation," he sighs. "Alright, alright. You're going to be disappointed though, because what Itachi handed you is close to our sum total knowledge."

Which was the truth in a certain light. Everything else he had were conjectures and half formed rumors.

"You said Orochimaru used to be part of the organisation," Kakashi-sensei asks, apparently his willingness to answer Shikako has become a free-for-all.

"Yeah," he adds grimly. "Which is close to the only reason I know about them at all."

"I asked him that," Shikako rasps thoughtfully. "Why we didn't know about them if it was people like him. He said we would, in time."

"Well, that doesn't sound good," Kakashi mutters.

Well, might as well give her all the information he had given the Sandaime. Since they were determined to be involved they would need to be well informed. "No. There are nine shinobi involved, as far as I can tell. All S-rank. So far they've been keeping pretty quiet, gathering information, keeping to the shadows, the kind of thing. There's Itachi Uchiha and Kisame Hoshigaki, obviously. Orochimaru left a while ago but there were some murmurings he'd been sighted with Sasori of the Red Sand. One of them is a bounty hunter, since we've been getting a lot of reports from the bounty offices. That's really about all we know."

She blinks and looked at me suspiciously, eyes telegraphing she does not believe he is being completely honest.

Fair enough. "Told ya, kid."

Events are speeding up faster than he likes. As he stares at eyes that should not look so haunted Jiraiya can't help but feel these two will be intricately involved in the unfolding troubles.

* * *

Whew, that was longer than I had planned. So, don't know when I'll update next but would you rather another POV or an original snippet in the DOS world?


	3. Chapter 3 A Twin's Temper

To the reviewers I mentioned an earlier chapter update: It's Shikamaru's fault - never had such a toublesome character.

My thanks to all the generous reviewers, words of encouragement and ideas are always brilliant. Requests are also plenty, Shikamaru, Kakashi and Sasuke seem to be favourites- makes my job harder as those are three of the most inscrutable characters of the Naruto/DOS world. I am planning on tackling them all some day or another. Another common remark is about my flashbacks not being in italics. Some people seem to hate it, others love it. I'm going to try make flashbacks a bit clearer but will not italicise for the moment because the flashbacks-within-flashbacks would soon get confusing.

This is not very polished, I'm planning to go over it but thought you might appreciate an update. For those who are finicky about jumping tenses and typos, come back in a day or two. Everyone else: I'm always happy to receive corrections - it just takes me a while to correct them.

Summary: Life as a ninja. It starts with confusion and terror and doesn't get any better from there. OC Self-insert

In other words, Nara Shikako is an OC self-insert who becomes Shikamaru's sister and has survived Naruto's lethal adventures until now.

This is Shikamaru's POV during chapter 23 in the Forest of Death. Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 3: A Twin's Temper**

By the time he was four, Nara Shikamaru had decided his life goals. He didn't feel he asked for much – just to marry a regular girl who didn't force him to wake up at dawn for stretching excercises and who wasn't too ugly or too pretty. To have two children, first a girl, then a boy. To retire after his daughter was married and his son became a successful ninja, and spend the rest of his life playing shōgi or Go. Then to die of old age before his wife.

By the time he was seven, he realised he had forgotten a crucial factor in his plans and that his sister's troublesome character would require a few life adjustments.

By the time he is eleven he realises, close to hysterical laughter as he races through the Forest of Death, that he was blind. No amount of adjusting will allow him his perfectly average life.

Not with Nara Shikako as his sister.

He doesn't have time to mourn this revelation as he flies through the trees, pushing himself faster than he ever has, his team mates struggling behind him.

He remembers reading a long time ago in the Nara libraries about twins. There had been some research proving ninja twins could have psychic bonds, working in tandem together better than any team mates could; he had even found techniques for twins to share their resevoirs of chakra. Despite the evidence, Shikamaru had attached little credibility to magical twin powers. He knows he is close to Shikako, he knows her better than anyone else but he's never felt any type of psychic foreshadowing.

That doesn't mean he hasn't been feeling uneasy ever since this Chuunin exam has started and even before it, picking up on the unusual patterns of his father's movements and unconsciously inferring from them. He wouldn't put it past his father to have acted a little more obviously, hinting awareness to Shikamaru without releasing classified information.

By the time he sees the huge explosion of fire – he _knows_. He has no definite proof and his intellect is desperately trying to rationalise his body's movement but he knows. His father has lectured him on the importance of gut instinct and the danger of ignoring it for the sake of facts and statistics.

He stops abruptly, Ino nearly careening into him, panting harshly as he sees the Hyuuga and Tenten on a tree branch, a few meters away. His brain is automatially firing up, gearing for a fight- first is a short range fighter while the other specialised in weapons, long range, he would need to separate them. He had secretly researched all Konoha entrants before the exam – it was less troublesome in the long run- and he knows he can probably take this team on but his blood is singing _toolatetoolatetoolat_e and he doesn't have time to waste. Before either team can react a green shape blurs forward and he recognises the boy. Lee- taijutsu specialist, no chakra to speak of- stabilises himself on the branch and shakes his head at his teammates before turning towards Shikamaru, his eyes showing recognition and his body screaming guilt. Shikamaru has a fraction of a second to turn cold at the thought that he was too late, that they had already lethally attacked and won, but his intellect finally reasserts itself and he catalogues Maito Gai's students. They're too put together, no whiff of smoke and obviously not having gone through a drawn-out battle- he knows his sister, they wouldn't have walked away unscathed even if they had managed to steal a scroll. The fraction of a second is over and Lee speaks up:

"I didn't- you should-"

He doesn't wait for him to finish- they are not helpful, they are not attacking, they are insignificant to the situation- and he jumps down, chakra slowing his fall as he lands in the clearing. His eyes look for a Nara-shaped form but his mind catalogues the clearing for danger- no movement, trip wires, kunais- he sees his sister's work and he feels reassured -three bodies, two males, insignificant, one female – he forces himself to look but his sister's hair is darker and that cannot be her so he ignores it for now and his eyes hone to the small figure huddled to his right, in front of the cave, just as his team thuds down next to him.

It is Shikako.

He simultaneously feels a sharp relief at her presence and his slow-to-rise anger blooming at her condition. Both her team mates are absent he notices absently as he takes in how battered his little sister is. His brain has not stopped thinking and it catalogues the injuries a part of him doesn't want to know.

Her ribs look suspiciously cracked, her nose most obviously broken, blood still sluggishly dripping down. The rest of her face is an artwork of bruises and scrapes, a pair of black eyes. Said eyes lift to his, dazed and pupils wide open -concussion likely- and Shikamaru cannot mistake the sheer emotion present in her eyes, her body trembling with exhaustion.

He cannot stand that stare.

She looks at him with the same relief, the same want for reassurance, the same unshakeable belief things will be alright because he is here and once he might have believed it true - but now; she is a physical testament of his failures and he looks away, unable to handle the implicit trust she has in him.

Looking away doesn't help, his eyes are drawn to the female corpse, to the three small senbons entrenched into the brain by the girl's own hand. His mind whirs as his previous assumptions are torn. Team Gai had not engaged in the fight at all, Lee's guilt must have been from stealing a scroll from his own village's injured ninjas. Sasuke and Naruto could have killed the three Oto nins and sustained injuries forcing them to recover in the cave Shikako was subconsciously still protecting but the bodies and the evidence surrounding them was suggestive. This hinted a three-to-one fight. Each Oto nin had participated in their own deaths, dealt invisible blows and herded in an undetectable pattern that he could recognise immediately as his sister's. Shikako might have bizarrely missed the Nara laziness gene but she remained efficient in her tactics and elegant in her problem solving.

Even when the solution was death.

From far away he hears Ino exclaiming: "Holy hell! What happened to your face?"

Without his brain's permission his eyes are dragged back to her face as she grimaces lightly, pain evident yet still dryly replying: "We got our asses kicked."

She couldn't have had time to apply the healing cream to her scrapes before they arrived and some injuries look older- there must have been two fights. The first had led to her team mates being taken out of commission. He rarely has problems controlling his emotions but his eyes dart away once again around the clearing as he confirms his theory. It is one thing to suspect, it is quite another to be proved right. The second fight had been his sister fighting alone.

The Oto nins were dead.

He had underestimated her. He should know her better than anyone else. Chouji is looking at his clenched fists worriedly and he finally speaks up, carefully controlling his voice: "We saw you fighting these guys. Thought you might need a hand. Guess I was wrong."

His tone is not as smooth as he would like it and Ino cocks her head towards him while his sister hides her eyes from him as she says in a monotone voice: "I would have… if I hadn't aimed to kill."

He knows. He had known as soon as he had seen the clearing even if he hadn't admitted it to himself immediately, he had theorised, then he had confirmed yet still her admission makes him take an involuntary half-step back.

It was foolish to think he could protect her for much longer.

Yet. He cannot just accept this as a fact. Looking after his sister is not a mission or a duty. It's just part of who he is. Ever since his earliest memory...

Chouji had left, headed home an hour earlier but Shikamaru had stayed on the rooftop watching the sky slowly bleed red and orange before dusk turned to twilight. His sister had joined him at some point, falling asleep curled up against him like a contented cat. He was about to shake her awake; their parents liked them to return before absolute darkness and not even the cool breeze of an otherwise sweltering Summer would stand as an adequate excuse. Before he could motivate himself to move, there was a blur of movement in the corner of his eyes and he found himself looking into his father's alert eyes.

He blinked.

Even if he _was_ only four years old he knew his father's habits and character. He had never seen him with such eyes, using such fluidly sharp movements or wearing such a grim face.

"Shikamaru! Shikako! Kami-Sama." His father didn't waste time with pointless exclamations or hold him so tightly so either this was an impostor or his data was incomplete he mused from within the tight embrace.

"Dad?" He shouldn't need to ask anything else as he raised an eyebrow.

His father dressed in full jounin gear was staring at his still asleep sister, visibly looking for any injuries. Shikamaru glanced enviously at his sister's uninterrupted slumber as he readied his finger to be pricked allowing the blood-activated Nara seal to send a distress call. His father had given him one of these once they were allowed to wander Konoha's streets. It might be uncommonly safe for young children in general but clan heirs were rather valuable to other villages.

The man who looked like his father zeroed in on his finger's movement and the corner of his mouth lifted as he recited:

_ "The moon shines shades of silver, gold and white,_

_ Pale and heavy in the sky._

_ The deer darkens the earth and lengthens the shadows._

_ While the boy looks on out."_

He feels his shoulders unclench at the recognition verses his mother had taught him while promising he would learn detection of henges once he was old enough. He didn't mind the seal. It was easier.

"I'm sorry Shikamaru. I was... distracted." Shikamaru caught his hesitation and wondered if his father was really so distracted or if that was another hint in itself. Then, the elder Nara brought his straying eyes back from Shikako and grasped both his shoulders, looking more serious than ever.

"Your mother might think you're too young to hear such things. But ignorance hasn't ever helped a Nara. Tonight the Hyūga heiress was kidnapped. Through sheer luck we managed to intercept the Kumogakure ninjas. This will of course turn into a diplomatic headache but do you understand what I'm saying?"

Shikamaru gulped, he knew Hinata, they were both required to attend clan meetings and she was a perfect cloud watching companion when he managed to escape the snot nosed clan kids since she never made any noise. His gaze strayed to Shikako and he wondered what he would do if it had been her.

His father seemed to follow his train of thought as he nodded grimly. "Yes, Nara's may not have famed eyes but we are as valuable to certain outside individuals, especially taken young. You are as protected as I could make you, but your sister…"

He trailed off as Shikamaru nodded absently, little mind furiously working. Shikako was not clan heir. She had less protection because of it - Konoha would not go to war for a kidnapped clan kid that wasn't even the heir. Yet as the current clan head's daughter she was the perfect choice for kidnapping and blackmail. On top of that his sister was annoyingly curious and would wander off anywhere, picking up strays along the way if he wasn't constantly with her. But…

"Shikako isn't going to be taken away. She's mine and you taught me no one can outwit a determined Nara. Don't worry so much dad, it's un-Nara like. No one will hurt Kako." Then, because why waste a perfectly useful form of transport he lifted his arms up in the universal language of children. This time his father gave him a real smile as he scooped the both of them up, Shikako barely waking.

He'd promised then, before being consciously aware how important, hard or necessary that promise would be.

Even Nara's are allowed to be stupid and naïve at four but he still clenches his fist a little harder at the sight of his sister's first kills.

"Where…" Ino's voice falters. "Where's your team? Sasuke?"

"They're… in there," she motions at the cavern. "They're in bad shape."

Shikamaru can see her shoulders slump. Knowing Shikako she probably thought it was her fault. She would never say so but Shikamaru knows this person better than anyone else in the world. She has a tower long protective streak which already led her to shoulder responsibility for every bad thing that ever happened. As if it could have been avoided if she had been smarter or stronger or faster. Sometimes he thinks she'd blame herself for the Kyuubi attack if she could make the timeline fit. So he raises his eyes upwards and sighs.

"Ino… take 'Kako in there. See what you can do for Sasuke and Naruto,"

He sees Shikako blink in surprise and he suppresses an inside snort. Efficiency is its own form of laziness and his plans are usually the most efficient. His sister's just never seen him at an occasion where laziness dictated him to take charge.

"We'll take care of this," he finishes, turning away. He's never stolen from a corpse before but he'd rather neutralise any remaining threat than be unpleasantly surprised. Glancing around the clearing he can see his sister has gone overkill and quite a few traps remain. If Sasuke and Naruto's condition forced them to stay the night, he would rather not be exploded into bits while scratching his nose.

"No, no. I've got to show you where the traps are," His sister stumbles drunkenly to her feet before pausing when she sees her scroll lying haphazardly on the ground.

"What scroll do you guys need?"

Ino voices what all three of them must be thinking: "We aren't taking your scroll. Don't even think that! Just because we're in this stupid Exam-"

She shakes her head then stops as her whole body sways, Ino and Chouji exchange worried glances on his side as they consider how best to handle what appears to be Shikamaru's slightly insane little sister.

"No. See. The thing is… the thing is, we have an extra Heaven Scroll. You can have it, if you help us."

For a second Shikamaru is nearly offended she feels she needs to make an exchange for their help.

"So you need an Earth Scroll? Man that sucks," Chouji says.

"Noooo. We got one of them too,"_ Of course_, she had a useless scroll and she was giving it away without making it obvious.

Ino and Chouji both look at him as they realise the extra scroll means there was more than one fight involved. The determination in their eyes heartens him. He would never leave his little sister as she is now but they have no relationship with Team 7 – except for Ino's thankfully waning crush on Sasuke- and this is after all a competitive exam. Team 7 is too battered to do much, but how to break it to 80 pounds of vacillating stubbornness? His sister was rarely stubborn but he's always preferred working around rather than through people.

"Okay, here's what we're going to do. You're going to show me where the traps are, then you're going to get some rest. We'll take it from there."

His sister finally nods and sets out with him and Chouji, pointing overhanging traps and trip wires, lethal and protective. Chouji is still giving him constant worried looks and Shikamaru isn't sure if it's because his sister is obviously out of it, eyes unfocusing and stumbling on air or because his fists are still clenched and he feels like ripping something in two. Shikamaru has never been bloodthirsty in his twelve years. Right now though, he half wishes one of the Oto nins were still alive and he had something to kill.

Then black chakra surges inside the cavern.

He freezes while Shikako snaps around: "Sasuke!"

He's never heard her sound so scared. He feels cold inside, mind working tangentially. The black chakra is worrying, but how did she even know it was Sasuke? He is useless in the next minutes as he blindly follows his sister's stumbling steps. It isn't the fear in his sister's identical eyes that is puzzling.

It's the _knowing_.

It's in her face. She's not scared of the black chakra… She's scared of… what it means? What comes after it? He thought he'd gotten used to his sister's Nara instinct times a hundred. It wasn't the first time she inexplicably did or anticipated something. But he's never seen that fear before.

They stop at the cave entrance, eyes adjusting in the dark and he bites back a swear that would ruin his 'troublesome' image as he recognises Sasuke. The boy is giving off waves of corrupted chakra. His body wreathed in black, the markings burning a livid red, like molten lava. He sees his sister take a sharp breath as her eyes trace the rancid chakra spinning about his body, orbiting it like a double helix.

He also notices Ino, looking between Shikako's face and Sasuke, sensing something is wrong but not understanding.

"Sasuke, you're awake! Are you hurt? Do you need-"

"Get out of my way," Sasuke growls at her and Shikamaru wonders if he should interrupt. Sasuke's voice is distorted, there's the possibility he's being controlled by someone or something else. The boy has been moody ever since his sister had dragged him into her band of merry strays but his face has never been so blank, with eerie markings still crawling over his skin.

"Maybe you should sit down; you were hurt, weren't you?" Ino chatters on, ignoring his gruff demand as Ino often does. There is some unease in her expression, Ino might hide it well but she is sharp, one usually turns out so with a father working in T&I.

He stiffens as he sees Sasuke contort his face into unrecognizable anger. He curls up his fist as Ino asks: "Ne, Sasuke, are you okay?"

He sees what is happening but his shock- Sasuke is actually attacking _his_ team mate- makes him too slow.

His sister on the other hand, seems to move before even Sasuke.

He hears her ribs crack audibly and she let's out a sharp wail of pain. His shadows spread without conscious thought as she follows it with small gasping sobs. He had thought he was angry when he saw her at first, beaten up by enemy ninjas in his absence. It is nothing to the _frustrationangerwrath_ which roars upon him as he realises she just got hit by a comrade in front of him. The only thing stopping him from acting is the fact that Sasuke is frozen in puzzlement _behind_ his sister and Ino.

"Shikako? Who hurt… I hit you?" He stares at his hand, flexing it as though he can't believe it had done such a thing.

Shikako sinks to her knees, choking and gasping: "Sasuke, you… your chakra was poisoned… you need to stop using chakra…"

"I feel… I've never felt better…" Sasuke mutters, clenching and unclenching his fist. "I feel so powerful…"

"It's poison…in your chakra… please stop…"

His face is conflicted but the marks start to fade away.

Shikamaru takes the time to tightly wrap his anger in control and rationale. An angry Nara is fearsome to behold his father used to say. But it was due to their ability to control and manipulate it into a useful output as well as owning the intellect to carry out a good revenge. It takes more seconds than he would have liked and he comes back to his surroundings to see Ino and Chouji giving him synchronised looks of apprehension while his sister the eternal motherhen is ignoring her injuries to give the Uchiha therapy. He breaths in sharply and ignores Ino's attempt to catch his eyes. The last time they had seen him angry, he had been five and it had ended in the utter humiliation of the perpetrator.

His sister's words float towards him, her earnest tones entreating as she clasps her teammates hand.

"…It isn't power that's your problem, Sasuke. Power comes easy… it's knowing when and how to use it. You've already seen that, haven't you? If you don't use it, it's useless. But if it uses you… that's even worse."

"I'm sorry,"

"It's okay."

"No, its not. It's really not. I hurt you. I would have hurt Ino. And… and… before… You fought and I did nothing… I was weak. I was scared. I… All I could think about was that man and how, if I died there I'd never get to fight him…"

"I was scared too," Her voice is distant, lost in her own memories. "I knew we didn't stand a chance, right from the moment he attacked us… from the moment I felt his chakra…"

"Then how could you do it?" Sasuke asks and the anguish in his voice helps Shikamaru reign in his anger. Intellectually he knows Sasuke is not completely in his right mind. "How could you just attack?"

"I couldn't, at first. I was scared stiff. Then … he was going to kill us. If it had just been me, by myself… I probably couldn't have done it. But he was going to hurt you, and then Naruto… and there wasn't even a choice anymore. It's like Haku said, 'when you're protecting something precious-'"

"That's when you become truly strong," Sasuke finishes. "There wasn't even a choice," he repeated. "Like… your body just moves on its own."

"We're a team. That's what it means. You fight when I can't and I fight when you can't. And when we can… when all three of us can fight together… no one will stand a chance." Her voice sounds less like bravado and more _knowing_.

His prediction of her team was rather more pessimistic when he aired outside the Konoha detention center a year ago.

On graduation day he had listened to Iruka calling the teams out. Shikako had worked out earlier that morning that they would not be placed together, he hadn't wanted to tell her. He may be smarter than her and he had suspected the placements but that didn't mean he knew how to feel about it. For as long as he could remember, Shikako had been his. His shadow, his companion, his to protect and love.

"… seven is Sasuke Uchiha, Naruto Uzumaki and Shikako Nara," Iruka announced. Naruto booed at Sasuke, then cheered, looking like he wanted to jump over and tackle-hug his sister.

Meanwhile Shikamaru kept his face unreadable and planned murder.

He had theorised this team placement since their first year at the academy, rightly assuming Shikako was going to continue to be first ranked after he got over his shock at the annoyingly un-Nara like motivation. Only idiots and naïve people thought the team selections were random and he hadn't seriously thought his father would allow the group pairing. Shikamaru knew his father was fair and just and would not smother them. But he was a Nara and Nara's don't take unnecessary risks. He didn't hate Sasuke but the boy was bordering on emo, and while his vendetta against his psychopath brother was troublesome as a friend, as his sister's team mate it would just be foolishly dangerous. And while he liked Naruto and tolerated his obnoxious energy, mission's were different.

Jinchuuriki's were dangerous.

He didn't think Naruto would ever hurt his sister, Shikamaru's seen him being rather protective of her but he knows villages hunt tailed beasts and he would have a big moving target on his back. He watched his sister give them a shy smile and wondered at how calm she was. He suspected she knew about the beast inside her friend too. He had only connected the dots after seeing one of the huge books she used to read about Konoha legends and experiencing first-hand the glares Naruto received. He had been seven. How no one else connected the dots he did not know. Idly he wondered if he should be worried Konoha ninjas were getting stupider with every generation. Thank Kami Naras existed to raise the intellectual level.

"Umm, did you want to eat lunch together? I have extra lunch." Her voice was soft but it still dragged Shikamaru's attention back to the problem. He was not surprised his sister asked them, their mother had made too much food for them for the express reason of team bonding. But he can't help feeling surprised she isn't tugging his hand and allowing him to be the shield between her and the world.

"Awesome! Your mum makes the best bento! Hey, why don't we go find Shikamaru? He's on Chouji's team, right?" Naruto grabbed her arm and started dragging her towards them, Shikako's face bemused but accepting and he narrowed his eyes at the hot rush of unfamiliar emotions at the familiar gesture evokes. It took him a few seconds of crisped hands to identify it: jealousy. Nara's didn't _do_ jealousy. It was too troublesome. But his sister has the annoying habit of making him break the mold. Sighing, he wondered at the difference between what he knew _logically_, his sister needed to start acting on her own and interacting with the world and the annoying _fear - _that this was the first step, the she would only get further and further away. Unless he remedied the situation.

Meanwhile Shikako had somehow managed to drag both her teammates towards him and he _knew_ this was a bad idea. He didn't think Naruto and Sasuke hated each other but they were the last people Iruka-Sensei would team up for group excercises. And with good reason, the glitter fight of second year is still legendary in the Konoha academy as well as being forbidden to talk about in the Nara household.

He sighed again when he saw Ino, who had been suprisingly quiet on his right, suddenly stand up, eyes shining brightly at the brooding Sasuke's approach. He had a small suspicion crushing on Sasuke was more drama than real for Ino but it might have been wishful thinking.

He wasn't very good at predicting girl feelings.

He still remembered how emotionally scarred he had been in the first week of the academy when he saw his blonde chilhood playmate turn from a troublesome bossy child to a squealing,shiny-eyed fan-girl. He had gone home and hid on the roof until his father climbed up and tried to explain the female brain. That had been even more traumatising, especially when halfway through Shikako joined them on the roof and they both listened wide-eyed as their father went over the fan-girl syndrome, kissing, how to escape unwanted clutches and when to run away from females. He remembered asking why Kako and the little Hyuuga heiress didn't get affected by the syndrome around the Uchiha boy and his father had grinned and said some girls escaped the infection due to good genes.

Hiding the twitch in his eyebrows, Shikamaru thought he should have listened to his father and instincts and skipped lunch. But he couldn't leave his sister alone with those two so he endured the most troublesome lunch of his life instead. Ino spent it in full-throttle fan-girl mode, Sasuke increasingly got irritated, purposely enraging Naruto who had never learnt to back away from blatant provocation. Meanwhile Chouji had munched everyone's food while Shikako made herself smaller and silent.

That had decided him.

He planned throughout the day, keeping half an eye on his new Sensei as he decided the best way to get rid of his sister's teammates. The first step was reconnaissance. Usually students and their senseis' records were in the main Konoha Library. They were restricted but the security could easily be bypassed. However, seeing Sasuke was the sole survivor of a massacre and Naruto housed a tailed beast he could easily surmise the security would be higher. Most probably the Hokage Tower's personal archives.

Troublesome didn't even cover half of it. But Shikako was his to protect and his father obviously was not going to do anything. Getting up from his post-team meeting cloud watching he set off to find Chouji.

Four hours later he found himself listening to Chouji's stomach growling as they waited in civilian cells for their parents to come get them. He wondered where it had all gone wrong. Actually he knew exactly where it had gone wrong. Chouji's distraction had gone flawlessly after they had wormed their way into the tower using their clan heir statuses. With the receptionist trying to control his friend's spectacular barfing he had gotten access to the archives through the seals his father had taught him the first time he had accompanied him to the tower for the clan heads meeting. The archivist on duty had been on his break as planned. It was only his damned bad luck that had resulted in Sharingan no Kakashi having the same brilliant idea.

Even his back up plan had been useless and he knew better than to try lying to Hatake. The end result would have been the same. It was only the Copy nin's own laziness in filling in paperwork that had him drop the both of them in the civilian cells usually reserved for drunks until they sobered up and send a quick message to their families.

He closed his eyes and stared at the boring grey ceiling as he heard the approaching footsteps. This situation was troublesome enough without seeing his father's no doubt raised eyebrow. His father didn't say a word until they had dropped a cowed Chouji off at his compound and were well on their way to their house.

"When Hatake told me he had incarcerated my child for trespass in restricted areas and collusion to coat the Hokage's tower in vomit I thought he was talking about my daughter. I can think of ways she could be dragged into a hare brained scheme and participate in trying to_ infiltrate the Hokage's tower_." His father drawled.

Shikamaru winced. In hindsight it had been a foolish plan. It was all his sister's fault.

"Then Hatake told me where you had been caught and it made a little more sense. I can't blame you much, no Nara clan heir has ever had such a sister. But misusing your clan heir privileges to break into classified files is never a good answer."

Shikamaru can't remember the last time his father had rebuked him and he blamed that for his mutinous answer: "How can you let her on that team? We're supposed to protect her."

His father stayed quiet for a bit before he mused: "Do you really think I would allow your sister into danger without doing everything in my power to minimise it?"

They had reached the Nara compound and Shikaku crouched in front of him: "You're going to have to let her grow Shika. You've done a wonderful job of protecting your sister. But she also needs to learn to protect herself. She can't remain your shadow for ever."

He stayed silent. His emotions were jumbled and he couldn't make any sense of them. His father as always, seemed to understand though because he sighed: "Shikako has only ever been yours but you need to learn to share Shikamaru. Shikako will always remain _your_ sister - no teams or separations will ever change that."

He ducked his head because he thought he was more logical than this and his father is looking. He's sure Shikako is not experiencing the same irritating jealousy and sense of loss. He might be smarter but she's always been more emotionally mature than him. Shikaku merely chuckled and ruffled his hair: "Come on, your sister should be home by now, how about we keep this from your mother? No need for another lecture okay?"

That day he had decided he would keep as much of an eye on his sister as possible but he would trust his father and trust Sasuke and Naruto to look out for his sister when he couldn't. From what he can infer, they have done so- they were both already unconcious when his sister had to defend and kill. The Uchiha was clearly mentally affected and while that stopped him from serious retribution he could still go scare him into sanity. He's had a speech ready since the ball incident to scare off potential boyfriends and he only needs to amend it a little. It might help him get the remaining angerfrustrationworry out of the way as well as observing feedback on how to perfect said speech.

He comes back to the clearing to his sister's slurred words: "If the poison is in your chakra system, you should probably avoid using chakra... stop it spreading…"

She is curled up in the cave, Sasuke still intently listening.

"Is she asleep?"

"Yeah, I think so," Sasuke replies.

"Good, because I have some things to say to you."

He sees Sasuke's eyes widen at his tone, grim and flat, and he feels a little better. This conversation is long overdue.

* * *

To those who believe Shikamaru is OOC, you may be right but I had to have a _little_ drama. Besides, while Shikako has an adult mind I always thought Shikamaru like any child might have a little trouble accepting their separation after 11 years of being joined at the hip.

Travelling alot in the next few weeks so can't promise an update. I'm thinking of doing another Shikamaru because there are alot of other scenes I can imagine him in. Probably not the next chapter as he was a horror to write.


End file.
